Review: The Age of Spiritual Machines
Editorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsWhat will the world look like when computers are smarter than their owners? Kurzweil, the brains behind some of today's most brilliant machines, offers his insights. Kurzweil (The Age of Intelligent Machines, not reviewed) posits that technological progress moves at exponential rates. If we apply that standard to the future of computer evolution, another 20 years or so will give us machines with as much memory and intelligence as ourselves. This projection involves a certain faith in as yet unforeseeable technical breakthroughs. There is no obvious way to reduce the size of an electrical circuit beyond a few atoms' width, for example--but the speed of circuits is a function of their size. Kurzweil gets around this limit (known in the computer industry as Moore's Law) by suggesting a relationship between the pace of time and the degree of chaos in a system; as order increases, the interval between meaningful events decreases. In other words, a more highly evolved system will continue to evolve at increasing speed. While this seems more a matter of faith than an inevitable law of nature, the history of technology (as Kurzweil summarizes it) seems to bear out the relationship. He extrapolates the future of computer technology, offering both a detailed time line and imaginary dialogues with a fully intelligent computer from a hundred years in our future. (This sort of imaginative exercise inevitably partakes to some degree of science fiction.) The book's deliberately nonlinear organization offers a variety of paths through the subject matter, as well, and Kurzweil encourages the reader to take whichever approach is attractive. While much of the material (Turing tests, AI research) will be familiar to readers who have followed the growth of computer science, Kurzweil's broad outlook and fresh approach make his optimism hard to resist. Heavy going in spots, but an extremely provocative glimpse of what the next few decades may well hold.
Review: The Age of Spiritual Machines
Editorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsWhat will the world look like when computers are smarter than their owners? Kurzweil, the brains behind some of today's most brilliant machines, offers his insights. Kurzweil (The Age of Intelligent Machines, not reviewed) posits that technological progress moves at exponential rates. If we apply that standard to the future of computer evolution, another 20 years or so will give us machines with as much memory and intelligence as ourselves. This projection involves a certain faith in as yet unforeseeable technical breakthroughs. There is no obvious way to reduce the size of an electrical circuit beyond a few atoms' width, for example—but the speed of circuits is a function of their size. Kurzweil gets around this limit (known in the computer industry as Moore's Law) by suggesting a relationship between the pace of time and the degree of chaos in a system; as order increases, the interval between meaningful events decreases. In other words, a more highly evolved system will continue to evolve at increasing speed. While this seems more a matter of faith than an inevitable law of nature, the history of technology (as Kurzweil summarizes it) seems to bear out the relationship. He extrapolates the future of computer technology, offering both a detailed time line and imaginary dialogues with a fully intelligent computer from a hundred years in our future. (This sort of imaginative exercise inevitably partakes to some degree of science fiction.) The book's deliberately nonlinear organization offers a variety of paths through the subject matter, as well, and Kurzweil encourages the reader to take whichever approach is attractive. While much of the material (Turing tests, AI research) will be familiar to readers who have followed the growth of computer science, Kurzweil's broad outlook and fresh approach make his optimism hard to resist. Heavy going in spots, but an extremely provocative glimpse of what the next few decades may well hold.
Review: The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
User Review - Dariusz Szewczak - GoodreadsBook offers an great insight of our future and what this might look like. Great read. Read full review
Review: The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
User Review - Cyrus - GoodreadsKurzweil is an interesting thinker, but not a great writer. He tracks the exponential growth of computing power to the time when hardware will have the same processing power as a human brain. While ... Read full review
Review: The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
User Review - Nate Huston - GoodreadsGreat book. Definitely one that I will return to, most likely a few times. One reason for that will be that Kurzweil has a habit of quickly accelerating into the realm of mind-bending, especially in ... Read full review
Review: The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
User Review - Stephanie Wrona-carlile - GoodreadsThought provoking to say the least Read full review
Review: The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
User Review - Andrew Sikes - GoodreadsAn interesting outline of futurist milestones. Read full review
Review: The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
User Review - John Orman - GoodreadsNot that much of a fantasy anymore--when computers exceed human intelligence. In this 1999 book, Kurzweil predicted that by 2019, only 6 years away, $1000 computers will match the power of the human ... Read full review
Review: The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
User Review - Miranda - GoodreadsI wish I could give this book zero stars. Never again. Read full review
Review: The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
User Review - Marc - GoodreadsWhen I first heard about this book and it's perspective I became rather depressed... to the point that it took me about 3 years to actively seek out and read it for myself. He is an exciting and ... Read full review
